1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and apparatus for managing supply chains and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for collaboratively managing supply, production and distribution in a global marketplace using networked computer systems.
2. Background Description
In today's global economy, supply chains (e.g., suppliers, assemblers, distributors, etc.) are commonly used in order to deliver reliable and affordable goods to the global marketplace. That is, suppliers typically provide a wide range of materials, ranging from raw materials to component products, to production facilities (e.g., sub and final production assemblers) so that the production facilities may assemble the component products into an assembled product ready for the marketplace. Following the production of the assembled products, distributors then distribute the assembled products to the global marketplace.
For example, when manufacturing computer storage products, (i) disk vendors, (ii) motor vendors, (iii) base vendors and (iv) head vendors furnish their respective components to the production facilities for assembly into the finished computer storage product. Thereafter, the distributor then distributes the assembled computer storage products, for example, to the global marketplace.
However, in order to maintain optimal efficiency of these supply chains, many complexities must be overcome. These complexities range from material constraints at the parts supplier to capacity constraints at the production facility to volatile demand from various global markets at the distribution end of the supply chain. Other complexities include organizational and geographical limitations.
Thus, in order for the supply chain to work in its intended manner, all parties involved in the supply chain (e.g., from suppliers to distributors) must coordinate their activities with one another so that efficiency throughout the supply chain is optimally maintained. For example, when producing and distributing computer storage products, an Asian supplier and a European supplier must coordinate their component delivery schedules with several production facilities located in, for example, North America and South America so that the production facilities have the proper components in a timely manner. The production facilities must then coordinate their schedules with the distributor so that the distributor can meet the demands for assembled computer storage products within a specific geographic location.
By way of further example, when the Asian supplier cannot meet the demand of the production facilities, the European supplier, or other supplier, must then coordinate their activities with the Asian supplier as well as the production facilities in order to then immediately increase their component delivery to the production facilities. Also, when, for example, the North America production facility sees an increase in demand, while the South American production facility sees a decrease in demand, both the European and Asian suppliers must coordinate their delivery amounts to the North and South American production facilities, respectively. Thus, the suppliers are not only dependent on the production facilities, but are also dependent on the demands of the distributors.
As seen from the above examples, supply chains by their very nature, transcend functional, process, organizational, geographical and enterprise boundaries (i.e., a corporation for example may comprise many separate divisions). That is, the many "role players" (e.g., parties) within the supply chain not only work within their own respective organizational and geographical boundaries, but must also interact with the other supply chain role players in order to ultimately deliver an assembled product, e.g., computer storage products, to the marketplace.
Thus, it is very important for the parties in the supply chain to coordinate their activities for good efficiency which heretofore has not been possible. However, as seen from the above examples, some of these activities must be coordinated amongst the several parties on the "fly" or in real time, which poses many difficulties. Accordingly, the efficiency of the supply chain inevitably suffers, which translates into cost overruns, late deliveries, over or under production and a myriad of other foreseen and unforseen problems.